11 Americans killed in Iraq; one of deadliest months yet

P-I STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, October 18, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Eleven more U.S. troops were slain in combat, the military said Wednesday, putting October on track to be the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the siege of Fallujah nearly two years ago.

The military says the sharp increase in U.S. casualties -- 70 so far this month -- is tied to Ramadan and a security crackdown that has left American forces more vulnerable to attack in Baghdad and its suburbs.

Muslim tenets hold that fighting a foreign occupation force during Islam's holy month puts a believer especially close to God.

Among the U.S. soldiers killed this week was a 53-year-old Vancouver man who never expected to be called back to the Army Reserve after leaving active duty 13 years ago.

Portland-area media Wednesday confirmed the death from a roadside bomb of Ronald Paulsen, who became the oldest of the 139 members of the armed forces with ties to Washington to die in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

KOIN, a Portland television station, interviewed Paulsen last year when he was called up after being out of the Army for 13 years.

Paulsen had served in the active Army for 14 years before leaving in 1992.

He told the news station that he was given a choice: accept a lump sum payment of $30,000 and be finished with the military, or accept $7,000 a year but with one hitch.

"I went for the annual," Paulsen told KOIN last year after he was called up after 13 years, "but you had to stay in the inactive reserve to get it."

At Fort Lawton in Seattle, officials said Paulsen did not appear on its rolls but appeared to be assigned to a unit in Fort Bragg, N.C.

As the death toll climbed for both U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians, who are being killed at a rate of at least 43 a day, the country's Shiite-dominated government remained under intense U.S. pressure to shut down Shiite militias.

Some members of the armed groups have fractured into uncontrolled, roaming death squads out for revenge against Sunni Arabs, the Muslim minority in Iraq who were politically and socially dominant until the fall of Saddam Hussein.

There have been growing signs in recent days of mounting strain between Washington and the wobbly government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who felt compelled during a conversation with President Bush this week to seek his assurances that the Americans were not going to dump him.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Wednesday blamed American officials who ran Iraq before its own government took nominal control for bringing the country to the present state of chaos.

"Had our friends listened to us, we would not be where we are today," Zebari said in an interview with The Associated Press.

It was an unusually harsh statement from Zebari, a Kurd, whose ethnic group owes much to the U.S. intervention in Iraq and for its virtual autonomy in the north of the country.

A report in Britain's Financial Times on Wednesday said the White House is now pressuring Iraqi authorities to give amnesty to Sunni insurgents. That would be a surprising change for the Bush administration, which has resisted amnesty because it could potentially include fighters who have killed American troops.

The latest American death took place Wednesday when a soldier was killed after his patrol was attacked with small-arms fire south of Baghdad.

Ten Americans were killed on Tuesday -- nine soldiers and a Marine -- the highest single-day combat death toll for U.S. forces since Jan. 5, when 11 service members were killed across Iraq.

There have been days with a higher number of U.S. deaths, but not solely from combat.